In many industries, customer representatives service a variety of requests from consumers. One example is the automotive sales industry where sales personnel field telephone calls from prospective customers. Another example is any business that utilizes a receptionist to interface with customers or clients, such as a law firm or doctor's office.
In the automotive sales industry, for example, it can be very difficult for a supervisor to monitor the quality of service provided by different sales representatives. Given the vast number of phone calls that are received in reply to different advertising campaigns, the supervisor is typically not able to monitor the quality of service provided in those phone calls.
Historically, the automotive industry has used advertising campaigns to solicit calls from prospective consumers. For example, advertisements are often placed in newspapers or in other advertising media to solicit phone calls from consumers. Conversion of these consumer calls typically results in only a three percent phone-up, i.e., conversion of the phone call to an actual sale of a vehicle. Thus, the percentage is extremely low relative to the amount of advertising that is spent to solicit the phone calls.
One of the reasons that the conversion of inquiries to actual sales is so low is due to the fact that the automotive industry has a significant amount of turnover of its sales personnel. Thus, oftentimes, a new sales representative handles calls and is ineffective in converting the calls to appointments. As a result, sales are lost. According to some industry analysts, a well-trained sales person should typically be able to obtain the name and number of a consumer during a phone inquiry 90-95% of the time. Furthermore, an appointment should typically be arranged with these consumers approximately 65% of the time. Assuming that 60% of these appointments show up at the dealership, and 60% of those visits result in a closing on an automobile, the resulting sales should be roughly 18-24% of the initial phone inquiries. This is a substantial improvement over the traditional phone-ups of 3% at which the automotive sales industry currently operates. Thus, the actual number of 3% points to a deficiency in training of current sales personnel.
Other businesses suffer from similar problems. New receptionists for example are oftentimes not familiar with the procedures of an office and can give a poor impression of the business to a prospective customer or client. Thus, there is a need for a system that would provide greater improvement in how telephone calls are handled by business representatives.